Team Stubb

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Through socially optimized research available
through the digital age, engaging in literary scholarship is more meaningful
and practicalthan ever before. One of
the foundational practices of literary study is to engage in what we frequently
call "the conversation." This literary conversation is more
accessible and meaningful through digital resources such as social media,
blogging, user-generated content, and curation tools, to name a few.

This is not say that
traditional scholarship should be done away with. That would be utterly absurd.
The beneficial part of socially optimized research is that it continues to
include traditional scholarship. However, socially optimized research allows for
students to connect with others that can provide essential information and
perspective in regards to their topics.

The social center of
this research process requires students to make the transition from amateur to
professional. As students receive social feedback online, especially from
enthusiasts and professionals, students are able to enter communities that
treat their topics seriously. Such communities require students to produce
higher quality work while gaining direct feedback from legitimate persons.

Additionally,
socially optimized research gives students a goal for their work. When
interacting socially with avariety of
enthusiasts and experts, a clear purpose for their projects take shape. Online
communities often refer to venues and events where students can submit papers,
abstracts, and guest blog posts.

When students submit
their work to legitimate organizations, they are able to cater their writing to
the relevant interests of the professional audience. Therefore, students' work
becomes directly relevant to the intended topic in the "real world".

I have personally
experienced the beneficial effects of socially optimized research. Through
social media, I was able to tellothers
about my interest in this topic and I got extremely positive feedback that gave
me confidence that my topic was interesting and worth pursuing. My Digital
DIY/Maker Movement project, I reached out to the Makers, hackers, engineers
& artists community to better understand the online communities surrounding
the movement. I was able to use one of the members' specificproject to legitimize my understanding of
Maker culture. Additionally, I was able to add to my project through
researching traditional scholarship from one of the top names in digital
manufacturing, Chris Anderson.

I think that
University-level literary studies would greatly benefit from engaging students
in socially optimized research. The connections made through such social
research can lead to legitimate publishing opportunities for individual
students. I believe that such opportunities will also reflect well on the
University as the students engage in more well-rounded learning through digital
resources.

Traditionally, academia has been commonly seen as an exclusive to digital culture. With the digital age upon us however, there is need to adjust a traditional academic setting in order to utilize the digital culture in an optimal way. There are many benefits that come from digital culture in advancing and enhancing one’s education. One aspect of digital culture doing this, is through the criticism that students are instructed to demonstrate in a literary way. This includes criticism of published works set to be studied in a course, or any other literary cannon.

Traditionally, a student demonstrates literary criticism through an academic paper that they would submit to their professor. Unless able to share with classmates or other people, the student’s criticism is only read by the sole professor. After a submission to the teacher, it may take a long time for the student to have their paper returned back to them and receive feedback on their writing.

Looking at literary criticism with the digital culture lens allows an individual to see the benefits that come from other web-based resources to produce criticism, other than the standard academic paper. Blogging is a great example of expressing criticism. Blogs are not only for digital diary usage or posting culinary creations. People are able to post their criticism on the web and receive immediate feedback from other web users. The Asylum is an example of a literary criticism website that is done informally out of a classroom setting.

Through blogging, various people are able to review your criticism, as opposed to only the professor. This enables a student to see the purpose behind assignments in a greater scheme; that it’s not just another essay to write in order to get a score, but it’s to enlighten the mind by demonstrating critical thinking and writing abilities. Another benefit that comes from posting online is the ability for other users to provide commentary and feedback on your posted blog. Through this resource, students can receive varied viewpoints on a matter and obtain helpful direction from viewers that comment. This is almost immediate and can be developed into the criticism if desired.

Another form of criticism through digital culture is curating through a curation tool, such as Pinterest. This is a method that is a different kind of criticism, because while it may not be traditional, it allows a student to learn how to filter and consume content. Curation tools demonstrate criticism through the user curating what they deem is noteworthy and significant to a subject. It expressed someone’s appreciation of a subject, as well. This can be seen depending on how much a user has curated on the subject, and if it is positive or negative curation.

Criticism can take many forms in digital culture. Using web-based avenues such as blogs and curation tools allows a student to become more in control of what they want to critique and how to critique it.

If we are to embrace digital culture and the digital humanities, it helps to be rooted in a literary cannon, or a text that is considered the American novel, Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. This is a great text that can navigate a traditionally academic student through the digital wilderness in understanding an aspect of digital culture.

One aspect of digital culture that really stands out in Moby Dick, is socially optimized research. Socially optimized research consists of gaining social proof through your homies, peers, enthusiasts, and experts. In addition to the “who,” it also encourages collaborative learning through tagging, commenting, and providing feedback to help a student achieve a quality formulated idea. In return, for the feedback you receive as one seeking social proof for research, it is expected that you also contribute to socially optimized research by providing your help and feedback for others’ needed ideas.

In Moby Dick, Ahab is a self-driven character, solely motivated by the desire to kill the whale, Moby Dick. Throughout the novel, we see him exemplify social proof by stopping every passing ship, and seeking their knowledge to achieve his goal. Ahab doesn’t have any family members or close, loved ones to speak of at this time, so he isn’t quite able to achieve proof from homies. He has, for most of the voyage, relied on his peers - his crew - to help him find Moby Dick. Ishamel could be considered an enthusiast; after all, he does have a whole section on cetology and is repeatedly reminding the reader of his enthusiasm for whale and whaling. Ishmael isn’t much help though; he helps around the ship in the whaling process, but isn’t a huge asset in finding Moby Dick. Lastly, Ahab enlists the experts - the captains of other ships whose paths they cross. For example, when the Pequod meets the Rachel, Ahab asks his usual question of, “‘Hast ye seen the White Whale?’” (468). Through asking this question to various ships, he is gaining a sense of direction in where to search for the whale and how close or far he is from the whale.

The problem, however, is that while Ahab demonstrates good social proof, he doesn’t do much to contribute to the others’ needs. When the newly acquainted ships make a request of the Pequod out of need, Ahab ignores them and continues on his journey with the information they freely gave and he hoarded. For example, when the Pequod meets the Delight, Ahab requests information on any encounter with Moby Dick. The Delight captain responds that they have, but they have been damaged and members of his crew killed by the whale. They sought help from the Ahab’s crew as they buried a crew member in the sea, but suddenly, “Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight” (477).

Through Ahab’s example we can see the benefits of utilizing social proof in our research. Optimized research should also entail providing feedback and direction for others when they help in our own quest. Doing all of this will bring variety and optimization of our research.

The very format of Moby Dick can be directly related to the
diversemediums of content available
online. Moby Dick has a reputation of being hard to get through as some have
asked the question, "Is Moby Dick
an analogy for reading Moby Dick?"
The difficulties in reading the text come from the diverse forms of text
presented in the text.

In the first part of
the work, we experience a plot-driven narrative by Ishmael that proves rather
traditional and engaging. However, when readers hit Chapter 32, whale cetology
becomes rather dry and disengaging. The plot is suspended and the pages drag
through tedious details of the variety of whale species. Once readers hit
chapter 37, Ahab has a sort of soliloquy, as does Starbuck in Chapter 38. Then,
Chapter 40 presents a full-blown song, sang by the Pequod's crew, as if the
text were suddenly a script for a musical.

How does one
interpret the text through each of its various forms: narrative,
encyclopedia-esque, theater script, etc.?

The text must be
read with an innovative thought process, even like a puzzle. Each of the
different portions of the text offer different types of information in terms of
thematic content, informational content, as well as characterization. We can
interpret the text most efficiently as we put these different pieces together
and create larger meaning from the different strengths the various formats
provide.

Likewise, the
Internet is full of various mediums that help us to efficiently interpret text
if we will simply use the various mediums together. Online, we are presented
with many different platforms that perform different functions: email, instant
messaging, Facebook, Twitter, video, audio, journalism, curation tools, etc.
The list could go on and on.

The internet is
becoming increasingly relevant to our culture. But it's influence as a tool can
only be found if we navigate the various mediums and platforms mentioned above.
Just like our reading of Moby Dick, we
are only successful in the digital realm if we take into account all of the
different online platforms.

For example, we use curation tools to gather
and organize our literary findings. We use social mediasuch as Facebook and Twitter to initiate
topic-centered conversations with relevant and knowledgeable audiences. We can
look at visual content such as videos or illustrative adaptations of text to
enhance our perspective on the primary work.

+Kristen Reber is a
great example of this as she has connected with a skilled editor to launch her
website. She has also crowdsourced information about the term "ERM"
through Facebook. She documented her process of launching the website on her blog,
where she has gained ideas and feedback from peers. Additionally, she conducted
a photo shoot to add visual effect and appeal to the purpose of her website.
Kristen's use of various forms of digital media has been extremely successful
because of the variety of digital resources she has compiled to create a
fascinating project.

Moby Dick helps us to make sense of digital
culture as it teaches us that many forms of text and presentation are essential
to capturing a greater depth within our online experience.

"The classroom can feel rather stuffy compared to online," said one of
my peers, Eliza Wooley. Her statement is more true than many people
realize. The online web is alive and well, and it is advancing at an
alarming rate. In order for students to be successful in their future careers, knowledge
of how to use online tools is essential. Teachers of literature can help
students gain these skills by incorporating certain forms of online rhetoric
into their curriculum. Online rhetoric includes knowing how to use online
databases for research, finding credible sources through social media, and
embracing new skills in technology such as multimedia such as YouTube.

I once had a teacher tell me that I had to use five printed sources for an essay. This
required me to go to a library and check out some books. Students before me
that did not have access to computers or the internet probably have a hard time
feeling sorry for me. That is fine. I’d probably have a hard time feeling sorry
for me too. However, I told this story to some peers today and they groaned and said how sorry they were for
me. With databases thriving and new material being added to them constantly,
what good reason was there for my teacher to limit me to books that were
published within the last ten years, but that were still outdated by the web’s
standards? Newer information was out there yet I was limited to old information.
Some might argue that because the book had to go through a rigorous publication
process, it is better quality. Sometimes that is the case, but that is not
always true. Online databases allow students to access high-quality
peer-reviewed articles, and sometimes even books. Sometimes copyright law gets
in the way of these high-quality articles being online, but for the most part,
many scholars have embraced the internet and allow their work to be published
online. Knowing how to use online databases is important to quickly accessing
quality information. Instead of research papers taking months to write, they can
be written in weeks, and no quality is lost.

Social media is generally looked at
as being fun, but not being of much use in academia. This statement is only
true if students do not know how to use social media for academic purposes.
Teachers ought to get online and learn how to use social media academically,
and then teach what they learn to their students. Students are already adept at
navigating social media sites. Now, they just need some direction in how to use
them for academia. Twitter allows hashtags to be searched, allowing students to
find experts in fields of study that interest them. Facebook allows people to
create searchable events, that students can then find and go to in order to
connect with experts. Social media is fun, but it can also be a great tool for
academia.

Finally, studying literature can
really be enhanced by embracing multimedia. The multimedia I am going to choose
to focus on is YouTube, although there are many other good options out there. I
was introduced to the idea of using multimedia in literature by this blog post from
Dr. Gideon Burton. I have never liked poetry, but seeing poetry put in a
multimedia format helped me to better understand it. If teachers can embrace
multimedia as a new way of approaching literature and encourage students to
show their understanding through multimedia instead of, say, traditional
essays, students will become more enthusiastic and more involved in what they
are learning.

Creativity is a natural part of being human. New forms of creativity are being introduced thanks to the online web. New skills are being introduced too, skills that are absolutely necessary to know for future success. Teachers ought to help their students develop those skills and taste that success now by encouraging them to learn these new tools, create, and then share what they have created. Sharing can be
scary, and some encouragement is needed, but once a student shares and gets
good feedback, they will likely be more willing to venture out and continue on
with what they have learned in a course, rather than light a bonfire on their
essays at the end of every semester.

Back in the days of whaling, a whaling crew would follow a
captain’s orders even if it ended up being to their detriment, as in the story
of Moby Dick. The story of Captain
Ahab chasing the white whale to the point of his and his crew’s destruction is
well-known. Only Ishmael, an insignificant crew member, survived to tell the
tale. Perhaps it was dumb luck that Ishmael survived the encounter with Moby
Dick, but his telling of the tale is amazing because of all of the curation of
research he does after his survival, and all of the mental notes he makes on
crew members. Ishmael did not have a one-track mind, unlike Captain Ahab. And
just like Ishmael, we need to be willing to look at all angles of literary
study and abandon the angles that do not work (even if they used to be the best
angles). The angle that is most important to look at right now is the digital
and how it can enhance the study of literature today.

One way
that the study of literature can be enhanced is by writing often and publishing
quickly. Some might say that Herman Melville could have used a good editor when
he was drafting Moby Dick. But the
book has held its form, and because of the vast amounts of information, and
seemingly unnecessary details drawn out in it, many different understandings
can be drawn from it. Melville researched, curated, wrote, and published the
book, and the book did not receive good feedback at first, just as the digital
did not. But in time, the benefits of Moby
Dick were seen and the benefits of the digital have been seen as well.

One of my
classmates, Shelly Russon, recently wrote a post about how she did not want
anything to do with the digital when she came home before her mission, and
before that only used it to watch others, but never create anything herself.
Now, because of the Digital Culture class, Shelly has learned how to filter and
use the digital to help her in her literary studies, and other studies.

Learning how to filter through the
digital is a critical tool as it helps us to find information quickly and put
out information quickly. Not every idea that is put out there is great
initially, but in time as feedback is given, and ideas are better developed,
thoughts, papers, projects are launched that really benefit society. The
digital allows things to be launched immediately too. Traditional modes of
launch generally center on isolation, limited audience, and delayed
publication.

People are so plugged
in to the internet these days, why would we continue to use traditional modes as
our sole means of studying literature? We must stop being Captain Ahab’s bent
on one way of doing things and one end goal in mind (getting that essay
written, getting that book finally accepted for publication) and start looking
at the other opportunities for good around us. We must be Ishmaels and not be
afraid to embark on a new voyage and then not be afraid to share our story afterward (even if it takes awhile for people to become interested in it).

The study of the humanities has often struggled against the apathy
of its students. Students who had no interest in the great author's
of history and would instead rather be reading the newest young adult
novel that had just come out, or were anxiously waiting for the
newest installation of a series they'd been waiting on for years. The
fandom culture is rampant in the digital age. Fans are able to
connect in various ways that make distance and even country
unimportant. Digital culture has enabled forums, chat rooms, fan
fiction sites, fan art sites and even fan theory sites to connect
together and make an entirely immersive environment for whatever
medium the fans are obsessed about. The sheer size of fandom culture
has grown in the past 10 years to dominate several different websites
and take over a huge portion of identity within the digital age.

What does that have to do with literary culture? Everything.
Classes have been filled with students studying literature with all
of the passion that fandoms embody online. Teachers who have fallen
in love with texts from centuries before that are trying to transfer
that love onto their students. These are fans that haven't had an
opportunity to participate in the life of a fandom because they are
confined to a classroom. But academia often doesn't appreciate the
comparison of their high end academic study to the obsessive and
neurotic fans. But if we as an academic community could get over the
stigma that fandoms are no more than obsessive teenage girls, then we
could apply the love of literature to the study of literature.

If more classes were available for modern-day literature than
there would be an increase of interest in the humanities. Academia
has a stigma against modern pop culture, and often people consider
poplar fiction or poetry to not be as good as the obscure. Many women
writers of the 19th century were written off by later
generations because they had been popular during their time, but they
had needed money for writing so their writing wasn't as good. That
doesn't make sense, and it shouldn't make sense now either. If
students had the option to come together and ask for a class that was
focused on a book or tv show that they had fallen in love with,
critical thinking, analysis, and study of literature would rise in
popularity. Many people enjoy learning about stuff they like, and to
restrict the study to only something that white men have decided are
worth studying some 50 years before is damaging the academic
community.

Fandoms are already studying content. They do it on forums and
chat rooms, they even analyze important messages in their fanfiction.
If they had a more focused medium, a teacher to guide them or help
them create content that was polished and honed then they would be
able to teach a new kind of academic study. A study that is more up
to date with what is going on in our day then what happened in the
last 500 years. Of course the older kind of academic study is still
important, but compared to the changes in literature and the rise of
popularity of science fiction and fantasy, it is falling behind.

Fandoms have the potential to become real academic critics talking
about stories that people are interested in today. Not just academics
who want to go over the same text for the thousandth time, but new
content that is coming out and people are reading now. Tapping into
the interests of the general public to create a real interest in
literary studies and maybe then people would stop calling what we do
useless and unimportant.